The Aftermath..

"No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm"

Quote by Charles Kettering-  a prominent American inventor, engineer and businessman

It was with some trepidation that we visited the garden the morning after the Storm called St Jude.  Winds of 90mph had been recorded along the south coast. We were keen to download our weather station and see what had been dealt to us.More later.

First though a quick visual assessment was made.  One broken pane of greenhouse glass,  one crab-apple tree snapped clean in half, the buddleia bent double,  sunflowers flattened, watering cans everywhere and most of the grapes having been ripped off of the vine.  Nothing in fact too serious in that an hour or two tidying up could not put right.

The sunflowers

Watering cans everywhere!

The snapped Crab-apple tree

The damaged buddleia

The weather station had recorded two strong gusts of wind that night.  One at about midnight showed about 35mph and another stronger gust at about 1am on the Monday morning showed about 42-45mph. Pressure had dipped overnight from 1000 to 975 and then slowly climbed up again as the storm passed by us.

Elsewhere the good news is that a hedgehog has moved into one of the boxes put out especially for them to overwinter in..  The animal is best left undisturbed now so please avoid the temptation in opening the lid!

The Aeolian Wind Organ was in fine form and notes danced across the pipes as the wind blew across them.  It is hoped to record them before long and put a link on the blog.

Finally a little bit of autumn colour as the fungi now make an appearance.  Just near the garden gate is this delightful clump of mushrooms